This brought to mind our, Jack and me, first experience flying out of Schiphol (say SkipPole) airport, just outside of Amsterdam. Headed to Rome, we’d just finished our first long leg of the journey, the 9 hour part. We headed through passport check. The Dutch official checking my passport suddenly broke into song, Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys in English, after passing me by his station. Weird.

We found our gate and waited in the first large room. The boarding attendants checked our passports and tickets again, and then let us into another small waiting room with long glass doors on one side. Exhausted, we dozed. Suddenly the glass doors flew open and all the other passengers stampeded through. Jack and I looked at one another in surprise and scurried after the crowd, like two dumb sheep.